Spencer woman sheds 136 pounds, gets on magazine cover

Sunday

Jan 12, 2014 at 6:00 AMJan 12, 2014 at 8:21 PM

Kaitlyn Ekstrom is half the person she used to be and she couldn't be happier. Ms. Ekstrom is on the cover of People Magazine's 12th annual "Half Their Size!" issue (on stands now), for the colossal feat of losing 136 pounds with "No Surgery! No Gimmicks!"

By Craig S. Semon TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Kaitlyn Ekstrom is half the person she used to be and she couldn't be happier.

Ms. Ekstrom is on the cover of People Magazine's 12th annual "Half Their Size!" issue (on stands now), for the colossal feat of losing 136 pounds with "No Surgery! No Gimmicks!"

Inside the magazine, it chronicles how this 31-year-old Spencer native has gone from being once a pudgy teenager, and subsequently, a withdrawn adult (weighing 263 pounds at her heaviest), to a platinum blond bombshell standing at 5 feet, 6 inches and weighing a svelte 127 pounds.

In recognition of her five-year anniversary of shedding 100 pounds (on Aug. 4, 2013), Ms. Ekstrom, who is the director of fitness and aquatics at The Willows at Worcester, did her first "before and after" photo comparison and posted it on Instagram so her family and friends could see it. She also hashtagged it "half my size," not realizing that People puts out an annual "Half My Size" issue already.

A couple of months later, People contacted Ms. Ekstrom and asked if she would be interested in being in its "Half My Size" issue. After a little convincing, she was flown in early December to Palm Springs, Calif., for a photo shoot. She didn't find out she was on the cover until she saw it in the airport terminal's newsstand.

"I was flying down to New York on Wednesday (Jan. 1) to do 'Good Morning America' (on Jan. 2). I went to Logan and checked out the Hudson News because they told us it was going to be out on the first, but they didn't have it," she said. "I got to JFK and I happened to walk by another Hudson News. And I went in and, sure enough, it was there. And my whole body started vibrating. I bought a couple copies and, Oh, God, I was so excited. My hands were shaking and I went to pay for it. And the girl who was ringing it up, was like, 'Is that you?' Yeah, it's me! It's me!'"

As a visual to show how much weight she lost, the people at "Good Morning America" showed the physical equivalent — a love seat with five small dogs.

"I loved that," Ms. Ekstrom said. "It was one of those things. I didn't even process it. I just saw puppies. I was, like, puppies!"

Looking at her "before" picture used in the People article, Ms. Ekstrom said she doesn't think her younger, former and much heavier self would have ever believed that the person she is today could have been possible.

"I hit puberty before everybody else," Ms. Ekstrom recalled. "My friends were all still 80 pounds and I weighted probably 118, 120 pounds and I was as tall as I am now. I was honestly like a rail, but I got it in my head that I was fat when I was 12 years old. And I had a few adult mentors — not my parents, not my family — mention that I was bigger than my peers."

Ms. Ekstrom said she was so embarrassed by her perceived body weight that she slowly withdrew from her peers and gave up activities that she loved, including dancing and soccer. As a result, she sought comfort in food and her eating habits grew worse.

"Looking back, I was absolutely at normal weight. I was absolutely well within that normal category," Ms. Ekstrom said. "The way that we talk to women, in general, specifically, young women about their bodies, if you don't fit in the criteria of what is considered to be beautiful or attractive, then you're fat or you're ugly. That really affected me when I was younger. And, you know, it affects me now but not as much."

From age 12 to 24, Ms. Ekstrom said she was gaining an average 10 pounds a year. As she got heavier, Ms. Ekstrom said she pushed people farther and farther away and her self-esteem shrunk and stayed terribly low into most of her adult life.

"I don't know if the weight gain caused the self-esteem issue, or if the self-esteem issue caused the weight gain. I tend to think it's the self-esteem issue that caused the weight gain," Ms. Ekstrom said. "I ate as a comfort mechanism. I gained more weight. I felt worse about myself, over and over and over again … It wasn't like I gained a lot all at once. It was just a little constantly, just up and up and up."

While she loves the People profile, Ms. Ekstrom said she wanted to set the record straight about a notorious (and already often-referenced) "bad habits" quote about how she used to eat "a box of frozen waffles with butter and syrup as a side dish with dinner."

"Eating a box of frozen waffles is going to be on my tombstone," Ms. Ekstrom joked. "They were like, 'Well, how would you over-eat sometimes?' And, I was like, sometimes, I would eat a box of frozen waffles. I wouldn't do that every night. If I did, I would have gained that much weight in a year. I would do that once in a while. But I would always eat too much. By the time I graduated college I was completely sedentary. I didn't do anything."

In 2006, Ms. Ekstrom was inspired by her mother, who was battling cancer, to change her eating habits. The family began to focus on eating more fruits and vegetables, lean proteins (such as chicken, fish and turkey), fewer processed foods, and eliminated white flour and refined sugar from their diet.

"It's really hard to complain about the fact that you want to eat cookies when your mother is sick to her stomach, nauseous from the chemo," Ms. Ekstrom said. "So anything I face is not going to be as bad as that. I can suck it up and deal. My mother is so positive. She refuses to get down about it. I've taken that flag and ran with it."

Within five or six weeks, Ms. Ekstrom lost 30 pounds, just from changing her diet and walking her beloved rescue dog, Charlie, eight short walks a day. Sixteen months later, Ms. Ekstrom had lost 100 pounds and would go on to lose an additional 36 pounds before she was done.

"I think part of it is my body wanted to get rid of that weight," Ms. Ektrom said. "And, it was enough to make me think, yeah, I can really do this. I can really keep this going. I can really lose this weight."

For the last two years, Ms. Ekstrom has been at 127 pounds (within a range of five pounds), she said. And, now more than ever, she is comfortable being in her own skin.

Ms. Ekstrom credits The Willows, where she teaches 25 fitness classes a week, and, previously, The Jewish Community Center, where she taught a fitness class for breast cancer survivors, for giving her the opportunity to learn and reach out to help people. And she credits her family and friends for making her the happiest, healthiest and strongest she has ever been in her life.

"Part of the reason I was able to make the change is because I knew I was loved no matter what," she said. "My group of girlfriends now, they are just wonderful. And they didn't care if I was a size 24. They wanted to hang out with me. They wanted to be my friend. My friends loved me just the way I am."